US Chamber of Commerce cites #19 rank, wants tougher IP laws

A new survey of intellectual property protections puts the US in 19th place, …

The World Economic Forum—otherwise known as the group that throws the fancy Davos shindig every year—has just released an over 400-page report on the world economy (PDF). Global competitiveness was the key metric, and the US lost its number one spot this year to Switzerland. So it goes. But tucked back in the report's list of data tables was a fascinating one about intellectual property, and it put the US in 19th place worldwide when it comes to protecting IP.

What happened next was entirely predictable in a world where many executives still think that "more IP protection" is always better: the US Chamber of Commerce called for... more IP protection in the US.

Weak and timid?

Nothing objective is being measured in the WEF survey question on intellectual property (p. 347) except for the feelings of the executives who answered it. That is, there's no attempt to compare IP protection regimes around the world to see which are best or which are toughest (not necessarily the same thing). Instead, the data comes from surveys of business leaders in countries all over the globe; leaders in each place are asked to rank their own country on a wide variety of metrics, from IP to government corruption to property rights.

What the 19th place US showing reveals, then, is whether executives in each country feel that IP protections are "strong" or "weak." Singapore execs thought their country had the strongest IP protections, followed by Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and Austria. Whatever the reality of US IP law, business executives in the US rated it weaker than did executives in 18 other countries.

But dealing with IP isn't simply a game in which amassing "tougher" weapons and better body armor is always better (retroactive copyright term extensions, for instance, make IP laws "tougher" but are largely a giveaway to huge businesses and rich artists while locking up the tremendous innovation and business opportunities created by a healthy public domain).

Data source: Open Rights Group

You wouldn't know that from reading a US Chamber of Commerce blog post this week on the WEF report, which laments the fact that "American executives really feel that the United States isn’t doing enough to protect and strengthen IP rights" (note: this is not in fact what the survey asked). The question this raises, then, is "why and how do we do better?" (emphasis added).

"America should be setting the gold standard for IP rights and protections," says the Chamber, and it has some ideas about how to "substantively move the ball forward to strengthen IP protections." Those include having the White House appoint its IP Enforcement Coordinator (a position unwilling pushed on the executive branch by the recent PRO-IP Act), passing the so-far secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and continuing to use the industry-guided Special 301 process for naming and shaming wicked countries like Canada for not being "tough enough" on IP. (Irony alert: Canada scored one place higher than the US on the WEF report, a fact noted with glee by Canadians sick of being some kind of international bad boy on this issue.)

Oh—and did we mention that the US ought to be lecturing other countries "engaging our trading partners in meaningful dialogue on how to strengthen and improve their IP legal and regulatory regimes"?

The end result of this whole way of thinking is obvious: a perpetual tightening of the thumbscrews. Reports like this come out, trade groups argue that their countries all need to do a better job of "catching up" to the first-place finisher, laws are passed, IP systems are tightened up, and a new number one country emerges. Everyone else then tries to reach this "new level."

It's a one-way system of ever-increasing control coupled with moral opprobrium for not agreeing that the only direction IP protection must go is up. In this case, the Chamber calls out US courage, hoping that the "United States is not timid" about standing up for its IP. Translation: Legislators, you're a bunch of sissies if you don't give us what we want.